The personal style journey of a petite mum who loves vintage, films, shoes and handbags!

Closet 2014: Winter Shopping List Part 1/3

Some time ago I decided to go back to shopping twice a year here’s the original post. It took a lot of self control that I didn’t always have but it was good to commit and follow through. Having a better awareness of what I already own made me realise things I was constantly attracted to were in fact my subconscious gravitating towards the familiar, tried and tested. In the past this would be the root of my ‘repeat offending’ and owning multiples of the same style, often the very same item. I had to change and shake myself into a more conscious state of awareness – can’t say I’m there yet but close 🙂

Autumn/Winter 2013/14

Grey coat

Short black coat

Grey knee boots

Ankle boots

Bright bag

Black leather gloves

Goldtone jewels (this highly condensed list started off as long as my arm)

I have a hand written list of all my clothes and accessories (oh, it was like school detention and self flagellation rolled into one!). It turns out I have very little grey outerwear at all. I’ve already begun to weed things out from this master list and the grey stuff safely remain bar one but I still wanted a coat. Over several months I simply could not decide which one or then even justify it because of all the other coats I already have (being a coat addict). The thing that finally made me decide against getting one afterall was realising I couldn’t wear a coat most the year round…whereas I could a grey leather jacket. I try to not have items that are too narrowly season specific – at least UK is better for that than some other climates. Now, my leather jacket quest has been a saga too, suffice to say I looked at 100’s over the years in the hope there was one out there for me. I tried on all the popular styles but none of them looked like they belonged to me. I’m still learning how to style myself while struggling with a changing body shape and taking on such a new shape, image and material together was too much until I stumbled upon this one by Whistles (of all places!).

It’s a sleek side of plain and simple. The details pleasing and the fit was really good for me. The sleeves are a bit long but I am always going to have that issue. I was very pleasantly surprised! Grey is a hard colour to choose because there are thousands of shades and undertones. This happens to be ok for me, it has a warm rosy undertone rather than blue or yellow, so quite flattering. The leather itself is lovely and the lining is quilted. This style came up large so I sized down happily knowing that I would wear it with only 2 thin layers at the very most underneath.

The other major clothing item was a black short coat that I already found the end of last year here. It’s proved very useful alternating with the navy J Crew peacoat. There were so many lovely coats that tempted me but in the end sticking to my shopping list really helped to keep me on track…mostly. Next post will be about the Accessories which are my weakness.